Public Servants For Change

Karin Norington-Reaves, C. Zawadi Morris and Kenice Mobley visit Friends and talk about Karin’s congressional run, gun violence, and the state of our children with host Marina Franklin.

Karin Norington-Reaves is a public servant and change agent with 30 years of experience in job creation, education, advocacy, and community development. A third-generation Chicagoan, Karin is the daughter of an Air Force veteran and sheet metal worker father and an entrepreneur and business coach mother. From an early age, she watched her mother advocate for, mentor, and serve others. For the past decade, Karin has been the CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, the nation’s most extensive and effective publicly-funded workforce development system. Under her leadership since it began in 2012, The Partnership has focused on connecting people to careers, and businesses to high-quality talent, impacting Chicagoland’s neighborhoods and business communities. Among Karin’s leadership accomplishments in the past decade are the roughly 100,000 people placed into long-lasting careers, and her management of half a billion dollars of economic investments in job training and placement and business development. Karin recognizes and amplifies the unique, untapped potential of individuals and Chicagoland communities through job placement and occupational training, and has collaborated with more than 2,000 businesses to create jobs in underserved neighborhoods. She is a catalyst for change and leads by serving others, advocating for equity in all economic opportunities in every space she sits in. Of all her roles Karin considers “Mama” her most noteworthy title. Karin and her crew — Alex, Rachelle, and two dogs — live in Chatham.

C. Zawadi Morris is an award-winning journalist and a Chicago native who moved to Brooklyn in 1997. Ms. Morris holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration (and a minor in Spanish) from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She has worked as the communications director for Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (NY-12), a senior account executive for Shandwick Public Affairs and Cohn & Wolf Public Relations, and an editor of Bed-Stuy Patch. In 2013, Ms. Morris launched The Brooklyn Reader, an online news source covering the neighborhoods of Central Brooklyn, and in 2020, she launched its non-profit sister site Scriibe.org, a collaborative news source for investigative local journalism. Ms. Morris is also the executive producer of The COVID-19 Writers Project.

Kenice Mobley performs stand up comedy around the world and recently made her late-night debut on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. She appears regularly on SiriusXM and is a Finalist in the StandUp NBC Competition. This year, Kenice worked on the BET Awards and By Us For Us, a sketch comedy series presented by Color of Change. She hosts Complexify on ViceNews, Love About Town, an interview and relationship podcast, and Make Yourself Cry, available on Planet Scum.

Always hosted by Marina Franklin – One Hour Comedy Special: Single Black Female ( Amazon Prime, CW Network), TBS’s The Last O.G, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Hysterical on FX, The Movie Trainwreck, Louie Season V, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, HBO’s Crashing, and The Breaks with Michelle Wolf.